NewsFire goes free

Coming hot on the heels of the 1.5 release, Dave Watanabe's popular RSS reader, NewsFire is now free.

David posted this on his blog:
"After much internal debate, I've made the decision that as of today, NewsFire is totally free. No feature restrictions, no ads, no cut-down 'lite' version... this is the real deal."

Newsfire is just the latest in the growing trend of free offline RSS readers available for the Mac. In January, leading reader app NetNewsWire became a free program, joining Vienna, Safari and even Mail.app as alternatives to the 800 lb gorilla known as Google Reader (also free).

Whether or not some of the other freeware alternatives will be able to sustain development without the support of a company like Newsgator (which owns NetNewsWire) remains to be seen, but in the meantime, I'm loving all these new RSS choices that don't deplete my wallet.

Although David Watanabe has been a controversial figure in the Mac community, he does make beautiful looking software. If you aren't already married to your RSS reader, or you have been waiting for NewsFire to have full Leopard support, now is your chance to try it out.

Thanks Carlo!